


Birthday Surprise

by Celyan



Series: Works for 007 Fest 2019 [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Just a silly little fic really, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19719112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celyan/pseuds/Celyan
Summary: R and the other Q Branchers want to celebrate Bond’s birthday. Q sees no reason why not. (Perhaps he should have.)





	Birthday Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> I asked for some birthday themed prompts, and christinefromsherwood delivered. Her prompt was: “Q jumps out of a cake?” so I thought that well, let’s see where that takes me. (I hope this isn’t a big disappointment to anyone. 😂)
> 
> Thanks to Ki for the beta, and for the people in the 00Q Slack for helping me out when I got a bit stuck on a line. 😊

It was supposed to be a joke, something to pass the time when the hour was growing late, work was slow and James was taking his sweet time to contact them for any sort of assistance. R and he had just been idly chatting, nothing more - Q barely remembers the topic or any sort of details - but it turns out that the others had been listening in more carefully than Q had originally thought.

Or perhaps it had been a scheme of R’s from the start, carefully and delicately executed, the time deliberately chosen. He certainly wouldn’t put it past her, the wily thing. 

And sure, Q had built the thing himself, to a very meticulous set of guidelines and with the utmost care to getting it to work just right. (It being a miniature robot version of himself. One might even say that he’d had a vested interest in perfecting it.)

He’d even used it a time or a few, himself, when he’d wanted to play a prank on his minions — there weren’t many things funnier than a group of unsuspecting techies suddenly jumping at hearing his voice and then starting to doubt their own ears upon noticing that Q had been in his office the whole time. 

But then the agency had suddenly gotten swamped with missions, and in the general chaos and hustle Q had lost track of his robot and eventually forgotten it altogether. After all, 007 had been in the epicentre of all the action, and it had taken most of Q’s considerable abilities and lots of effort to smooth over a set of ruffled feathers after another, not to mention to keep the man kitted with palm-print encoded Walthers and miniature radios and whichever nifty gadgets Q Branch had come up with for him to destroy that time—as his lover, Q had had rather a vested interest in keeping him safe, too. 

So when Bond’s birthday was rapidly approaching and R had suggested that they'd get a cake down to Q Branch to celebrate it, Q hadn’t thought much of it. He’d enquired of the reason, of course, but R’s explanation of wanting to show their support at the man’s continued existence had fully satisfied him. He’d figured that maybe his minions just liked James, especially since he was their boss’ significant other and had spent a fair bit of time around Q both in and out of his office. 

Q had been made in charge of inviting James to Q Branch in time for a spot of lunch, followed by the cake, and had been sworn to secrecy. He’d agreed easily enough, wanting to see the expression on his lover’s face when he’d see everyone gather around him and bring in the cake. He’d also been promised that there would be singing involved, too, which had amused him to no end. 

So really, while Q had, in theory, known about the plan in the most basic sense, he’d been kept in the dark almost as much as James himself. And he really had no one to blame but himself. 

(Well, he blames R, if anyone asks. But no one does, and he’d be lying if he claimed not to be at least somewhat bitter about that.)

*

James’ birthday falls on a nice, sunny Thursday, and to top it off he has the rest of the week off, too. He comes down to Q Branch well in time for lunch, finds Q in the bullpen and talks him into a lovely little snogging session to kill the time while they wait for the delivery. Well, Q isn’t exactly resisting, and their cover story has never been quite so flimsy before—apparently all that his brain came up with was that he’d be helping James with his mission report in his office. 

R’s eyeroll and the light chuckling followed by his announcement are enough to let him know that they’re fooling exactly no one, but Q’s too happy to care. Instead, he spends a delightful half an hour with his lover, and they re-emerge in time to eat the sandwiches they’d ordered and socialise with the minions. 

The appearance of the cake, a stunning three-tier chocolate cream masterpiece decorated with edible replicas of several of the gadgets James has used over his career, does make James’ eyes widen quite noticeably. The singing that follows makes him even colour a bit around the ears, and Q’s ready to tease him about it - just a little, honest - but when the top of the cake suddenly bursts open with a sharp crack and the miniature Q jumps out, it does manage to startle him just as much as it does James. 

Well, James does heroically push Q away from the line of fire and cover him with his own body almost before the surprise has registered. But afterwards, when Q’s blinking owlishly while being helped up from the ground by his lover, and when the mini-Q walks towards them with single-minded focus and says, loud and clear for all to hear, “I love you, but if you won’t stop doodling on official memos I swear I will sic the cats on you!” in Q’s own voice, he has a fleeting thought to dock everyone’s pay for giving them such a scare. 

He does, however, fully acknowledge the hilarity of the situation, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t play the footage to James again for his next birthday. (And possibly any time the man annoys him in the future, as the expression on his face when he realises that it’s a robot that looks exactly like Q is far too funny to let it be forgotten.) 

When James picks up the mini-Q and examines it carefully, stating that it must be Q’s own handiwork, Q knows that James hasn’t really minded being caught off-balance like that. 

And when the robot finds its way to Q’s flat sometime later, being chased around by the cats, Q knows not to be too surprised. 

But when a video of the incident - voiced over by James himself, dryly explaining how Q must have finally cuddled his cats too much for them to bear - suddenly appears in Q’s work email, though, he can only hope that James hasn’t sent it to anyone else but him.


End file.
